By Bryan Davis/The Enterprise-Tocsin

Mississippi Delta Community College will be on the road the first two weeks of the football season, and Trojan Head Coach Jeff Tatum is just fine with that. 

Tatum said he wants his kids focused on football when the season starts, and while it's nice to play a home date to kickoff, traveling to Gulf Coast Community College might provide the buffer they need to keep that focus. 

"The first two games being on the road is to our advantage is the way we see it," Tatum said. 

Tatum's Trojans will be battling an always tough community college schedule in Mississippi, that includes opponents from some of the strongest programs in the country. 

With 18 sophomores and 37 freshmen, he's looking for any advantage he can get. 

He also hopes that ratio will translate into success in the years to come. 

"We're going to be young again," Tatum said. "I try not to get into that cycle where you have about 25 sophomores and 30 freshmen…Those guys are going to have to grow up early, especially on defense." 

Tatum is hoping the addition of a new defensive coordinator, Michael Turner, will bring new enthusiasm and aggressiveness to that side of the ball. 

"I think (fans) are going to see a very aggressive team," Tatum said. "They're going to see some guys who are going to make mistakes, but they're gonna make them full speed." 

After playing Gulf Coast on Aug. 30, MDCC will head to Turner's most recent team, Hinds Community College on Sept. 6. Hinds is coming off a 6-3 2017 campaign. 

On Sept. 13, MDCC will host its first game of the season, taking on Northwest Community College, one of the stronger programs in the state, Tatum said. 

After that, it is off to Scooba to play the infamously strong East Mississippi Community College program. Turner also coached under Buddy Stephens at EMCC earlier in his career. 

The Trojans return to Moorhead for a Sept. 27 matchup against Coahoma, followed by a road game against Northeast the following week in Booneville. 

The final three games will include a home match against Itawamba on Oct. 13, a road game at Goodman against Holmes on Oct. 20 and a final home game against Pearl River on Oct. 27.

"Anytime you play in our league, it's still going to be pretty tough," Tatum said. "It's a typical year in this league."

Jeff Tatum and Michael Turner have two things in common. They both own national championship rings at the community college level, and they both played – during different years – at Mississippi Delta Community College.

Tatum played in Moorhead from 1980-81, and Turner began his collegiate career in 2008 at MDCC. Tatum, who has been head coach at MDCC for six years, is a native of Frisco City, Ala., and Turner is a local guy, raised in Greenwood and a graduate of Pillow Academy. 

Tatum is hoping the addition of Turner is one of the final pieces in creating a foundation of sustained success for the program. 

"He wants to be here in the Delta," Tatum said of Turner. "He's not coming through just for the job and looking for the next one. He's here for the long haul." 

Turner said the fact that he and Tatum are so close to the college makes a difference when they are coaching. 

"We've been in their shoes," Turner said. "Where they literally are, we've been there." 

Turner began his playing career at MDCC, and he eventually transferred to Delta State, where he played one year. He thought he had hung up his cletes for good when he transferred to Mississippi State University with the intention of becoming a strength coach. 

"I got talked into playing my final year," he said. 

He went on to work as a graduate assistant, and he ended up back near Mississippi State as a coach at East Mississippi Community College. That is where he earned his national championship ring. After completing a three-year stint at EMCC, he joined the Hinds Community College staff as a strength coach. 

The first year, Hinds went 2-7, but they improved to 6-3 last year. After his success with Hinds, Turner was recruited by Tatum to join the MDCC staff, and this will be Turner's first year coaching defense.

Tatum said he knows Turner will make mistakes as a young coach, but he views the upside of his youth and loyalty to the college as a good tradeoff during his first year. 

"We'll trade the mistakes for the enthusiasm and energy he brings," Tatum said. 

Tatum said during his first two seasons at MDCC, he did not experience a lot of turnover on his coaching staff, but that changed going into the third year. 

"We started having changes every year for one reason or another," Tatum said. 

Tatum said that continuity in the coaching staff is one of the important factors when building a championship program. Getting to that championship level is important to Turner, but he said he hopes the players will put more emphasis on "enjoying the journey." He said the wins will come when they build the chemistry. Tatum said that chemistry is vital to a winning program.

"You can't describe it," Tatum said. "You can't tell anybody what it's like. You just know it when you see it." 

Tatum has actually won three championships. Once was in high school, and the other two came at the defensive coordinator position at MDCC (1993) and Georgia Military College (2001).

"After winning that first one, it made me hungry to get back to that same point," Tatum said. "When you get there, it's such a great accomplishment, you want everybody to have that same accomplishment. You want them to have that same great feeling that you got to experience." 

Tatum and Turner will be focused on trying to win ball games during the fall, but their eyes are also set on the future. Tatum said that recruiting is going to be one of the biggest factors in sustained success. 

"We have to do a better job of keeping our local guys at Mississippi Delta Community College," Tatum said. 

He's already moving in the right direction by bringing a local guy back to the Delta to coach the next generation of players.